11,580 cartons of second chances: therapeutic food reaches Gombe's youngest children

The handover in Gombe, in north-east Nigeria, was measured in cartons: 11,580 of them, each holding sachets of ready-to-use therapeutic food — the peanut-based paste that can bring a severely malnourished child back, feed by feed, without a hospital stay. UNICEF's Bauchi field chief, Dr Nuzhat Rafique, handed the consignment to the Gombe State Government, and the partnership behind it matters as much as the paste: the state put in ₦500 million (about $375,000) of its own money for nutrition in 2025, matched shilling-for-shilling through the Child Nutrition Fund. Community groups with names like Mama2Mama and Fathers for Good Health will help make sure the food is used as medicine, not groceries — and a state committee now watches that none of it is diverted along the way.

SDG 2 · Zero hunger — Mechanism: institutional program